Genealogy

My grandmother was quite a storyteller. Even though she'd married for a second time after the death of my grandfather - when I and most of my cousins were either too young to remember him or not yet born, she made sure we all knew something of his character, as well as some of the fun they'd had together. She spoke of pre-war Dundee, where they'd lived and from where she felt obliged to flee with her three young children during the blitz, and, rather mysteriously; of the very different lifestyle she'd led there before she and my grandfather had married. In contrast to their years together, she seemed to have been very well provided for before her marriage - even as the rest of the world struggled to make ends meet during the depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s. Yet it was never clear how that far off lifestyle was financed, for save for the death of her natural mother when she was just two weeks old and her subsequent adoption by an aunt, she rarely spoke of her own relations.

At the time it just seemed pure chance, that I should happen to visit her one Tuesday afternoon, during one of my trips north, in 1997. Her friend, Joan, was there too; and during the inevitable reminiscence after coffee, she produced from her hallway cupboard, that old document which she claimed proved her entitlement to 'real estate' - that is, the one remaining place in an old cemetery lair in Forfar! I'd almost forgotten this existed, it had been such a while since I'd seen it, but as ever it was accompanied by her suggestion that when her weary days were over, she might just take herself up there...

Sat as I was with two ageing ladies with failing sight, I was egged on by one or the other to try to decipher the old copperplate script, which was of course an account of the three existing occupants - David Christie Ballingall, his wife, Mary Ann Thomson Ballingall and daughter, Margaret Thomson Ballingall; and upon Joan's enquiry, Gran confirmed that these were her grandparents and aunt, on her mother's side. The script continued, to the effect that if no claim had been made upon the remaining lair within fifty years of the date of the last internment, Forfar Council or its successors could forfeit the right of access to it; and so the joke about Gran's trip up there became all the funnier, as we realised she had just five and half months left to stake her claim...!

For the first time ever - to any of my living relations' knowledge - my gran then spent the next hour recalling names of the relations of her youth - and provided me with pen and paper, to make note of them, for future research! This really was quite a momentous occasion as I arrived there really only knowing that the aunt who'd raised her was known colloquially as 'Granny Broon' and her grandfather had been Samuel Moss, a brassfounder - but I left with details of the names of that aunt, both sets of grandparents, several cousins - and perhaps most revealing of all, the names of both her parents, her father's second wife, and her half-brother and sister from that marriage - which up until that point, no member of the family had even any clue existed.

Joan left, and some time later, I bid my grandmother farewell too, and returned to my parents armed with all this information, and they too, were pretty amazed by this sudden revelation. Then the next morning, the phone rang just as my father was leaving for work - his mother had suffered a stroke during the night that had left her half-paralysed and unable to speak...

Just how uncanny is that? She lived for a few years more in a nursing home, barely able to move without help; and although she recovered some speech, it was hardly enough to make even the most everyday conversation possible, never mind recollection of past events and names of long-dead people. I've never really believed in premonitions - but it makes you wonder, doesn't it...?

Now, ten years later - and five years after her death, I have quite an insight into my ancestry, thanks to that old cemetery deed paper, and the subsequent conversation. I have traced the Ballingall family back ten generations, to their Fife roots, and made connections with Thomsons, Morrisons, Craigs, Strachans and Peacocks - all in the Forfar area - the latter as far back as the early 1600s. I have traced the Moss family - which was quite extensive for much of the nineteenth century but may no longer exists as such at all, back to the same period - they'd not arrived in Dundee until the 1830s, and had previously been in Edinburgh - and in Melrose, Roxburghshire, before that. I've connected them to the Goodales of Stenton and Whittinghame parishes of East Lothian; as well as the Kennedys of Minto and Wights and Waughs, of other Border parishes.

On my mother's side - and with the help of pre-existing, yet unknown to any of us, websites prepared by a distant cousin we never knew existed - I've connected us with Cormacks, Anguses, Andersons, Alexanders, Youngs, Bruces and others - all from the rural glens of Angus and north-east Perthshire. And at length, I've even tracked my own Harvey family back two more generations and connected them with Herons - which previously only appeared, somewhat strangely, as a middle name of one of my aunts. Alas, prior to the 1860s both of these lived in Ireland and as yet, I've no idea where - so that's a project for another rainy day!

A few skeletons continue to rattle in my Gran's cupboard! As well as the hitherto unexplained 'Heron', she gave her second daughter another middle name - McFarlane; and the only connection I can find with that is that it was a middle name of Jessie, the second wife of the father she claimed to hate so much and have nothing to do with. And what's more, her own marriage to my grandfather took place in St Paul's Cathedral in Dundee - and as his family were Roman Catholics and hers Church of Scotland - yes, you've guessed it, Jessie's were Scottish Episcopal - and members of St Paul's!

And somewhat sadly to my way of thinking, she never did join the grandparents whom I'm almost certain funded her illustrious youth, at Forfar - my father and his sisters simply had her cremated at Perth, where her ashes were presumably buried in the garden of remembrance.